I want the Enquirer’s readers to know that I left Mr. Kleintank. I couldn’t be his wife if I was still Pat’s. It wasn’t the law that I feared, but the Almighty. I’m not a sinner. I can’t be, though the Devil knows that he has tempted me to be. I need to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ve got kin up there. When you believe in God, your path in life isn’t simple, but it’s clear. You can see the North Star in the darkest sky. You can see Freedom across the Ohio. You can see your mother waiting for you in the Hereafter. No man—John Kleintank or Lafcadio Hearn or Patrick Hearn—was going to keep me from getting There.

The proof that I’d feared then is the proof that I need now. Mr. Anderson would call that ironic. I call it a slap in the face. I call it Pat still having a say, though his body is cold in the ground.

As I’ve said, Miss, about a month ago I’d received a letter from a publisher. It was addressed to “Mrs. Lafcadio Patrick Hearn.” Do you know where it was sent? To Mrs. Haslam’s. I suppose Pat must have carried that address with him all the way to Japan. Mrs. Haslam’s youngest sister, a widow herself, is now in charge of the boardinghouse, and she got word to me through her cook. That Mrs. Haslam’s sister knew that the letter was meant for me, well, that told me that Mrs. Haslam, may she rest in peace, knew about Pat and me all along.

I gave the letter to Bill to read. That was how we learned that Pat had passed, for the second time. There were tears in Bill’s eyes. I would rather that he not miss Mr. Pat, as I’d told him years ago. Miss his books, I’d told him. The books you can replace.

I asked Bill if he had known. He said that he must have missed the death notice in the newspapers, same with the observatory—

Yes, yes, the obituary. I know the word, Miss.

I get the beginnings and the ends of them right, don’t I? It’s the middle that I tend to forget. So many of them are like an overstuffed chicken. Bread crumbs, chestnuts, onions, and oysters. The bird alone is enough, I always say.